Saturday, October 24, 2009

The last time I posted I spent part of the morning on the phone to my Nana, Lena (Selena). The day after I had Marcus, Nana was admitted to hospital with pneumonia. Not content with such a serious illness at age 91, she decided to move in on more of my son's limelight by having four angina attacks and a heart attack while I was still in hospital myself. I decided a phone call regarding this outright Jonesing of my son's attention was required...

My Nana is my mum's mum, and I spent a fortnight with her and my Pa during the summer holidays when I was a child. I suspect my parents decided a small child was too much on top of three teenage girls for a whole holiday season. It may come as a surprise to anyone who knows me now, but I was a very quiet child. Hand me a book and leave me alone, and that's exactly what my Nana did. I built up a collection of Trixie Belden books that were the envy of all my friends over those summers, and when I wasn't re-reading them all (what are dungerees, anyway?) I was knitting.

My Nana loved knitting and she once won first prize for her handknitted socks at the Mirboo North Show, something she was very proud of. She had the patience of a saint with me, because when I was younger I didn't like to knit the last stitch of the row. Each time she'd knit the stitch and hand my work back to me to start the next row, all the while knowing I'd need her help in a few minutes. Like I said, a saint.

Sadly, we lost my Nana last weekend. We'd hoped she would last until my parents got back from their trip to Sydney on Wednesday, but it was not to be. She was sweet, kind, honest, funny and loyal. My biggest regret is that Marcus will never get to know the truly beautiful great-grandmother he very briefly had.

6 comments:

so sorry to hear about your Nana - your post took me back to my childhood and trixie - I must of devoured those books too - perhaps that is where my love of crime novels come from - Trixie, the secret seven and nacey drew.

My sympathies on your loss, my Nan passed away late last year and it is a very sad time to lose someone so special. I also was an avid Trixie Belden, Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys reader. It's so nice to have such lovely memories of your Nana and your childhood, I'm sure Marcus will hear lots of stories from you and come to understand how special she was to you.

As everyone else said - he'll know her through you! I feel like I know my great grandparents through my Mum's stories and we're always talking about what they'd say about such and such! It's wonderful to have such fantastic people in our lives. My sympathies, but also... she sounds like a fantastic lady!